Recruitment
Recruitment is an endless effort at The Sandspur. If there is no content, there is no paper. While recruitment is generally led by the Managing Editor, Head Content Editor, and Public Relations Department, it is everyone’s responsibility to be constantly searching for new writers and new staff members. Recruitment Strategies Ideas for recruitment that have been attempted or discussed in the past are included below. 'Before the School Year Starts' All of the following strategies either take place before the school year begins or involve sending emails or asking for time during the summer. *'Speak to Resident Assistants and Peer Mentors during training. '''If any Editorial Board staff will be near campus during the beginning of August, someone should email the employee in charge of Peer Mentors and the head of Residential Life in May asking if you can schedule a time to speak to peer mentors and RAs. This is a great time to emphasize that a Sandspur meeting can count as an event for their mentees/residents. *'Speak at first year orientation.' Since the Editorial Board will be returning to campus earlier in the fall, the Editor-in-Chief should email the head of Explorations to schedule a time for The Sandspur or all campus media to have a session that first year students can attend during orientation. *'Create orientation issue.' Creating and distributing an orientation issue—either through handing out papers to students during move-in or emailing Explorations to include a copy in each student’s folder would be a great way to reach out to all first years immediately. *'Email Students.' Emailing students, preferably individually, who are English or communications majors or minors can be a great way to recruit new staff members who would be interested in working for their college paper. Send these emails before the school year starts to beat recruiting tactics of other organizations. *'Email professors. Send an email—preferably personalized with their name at the top (yes, this takes a while, but it often receives a better response)—to all professors reminding them that The Sandspur exists. You can offer to work with their students to create articles or find some way to work with an assignment on their syllabus as well as encouraging them to submit content themselves. You can get a list of all of the professor’s email addresses in FoxLink under the “All Users” tab. In the past, we have published work from classes including Global Peace Film Festival reviews, statistical analyses (then applied to campus) from Quantitative Reasoning courses, op-eds from INB courses about business in Orlando, and assignments from the journalism courses. These emails should be sent at the beginning of both the fall and spring semesters, preferably a week to a few days before the semester begins. A separate email could also be sent for intersession courses. A sample email is included below. Dr./Professor NAME, As you put the finishing touches on your syllabi and prepare to begin classes next week, please consider adding a Sandspur writing assignment as part of your course. Although the paper has regular staff writers, we also accept contributions from students, staff, and faculty. Submitting an article is simple: just e-mail submit@thesandspur.org. Typically articles are about 500 words in length, although the web site allows for some longer content where appropriate. We would love to hear your voice in the paper as well as your students’ voices. We are strongly committed to publishing a diversity of voices and topics. Submissions could include a political opinion, cultural review, personal reflection, application of an economic or sociological theory to campus, etc. Possible articles for courses could include: • Spotlights on the work students are doing in the course • Application of theories studied to Rollins or the Winter Park community • Political or cultural opinion articles that connect the issue discussed to Rollins We are also hiring additional staff for the spring semester including beat writers, freelance writers, Section Editors, web staff, ad reps, and photographers. Please encourage your students to apply for these roles. They can express interest by emailing me (aecarlson@rollins.edu) or The Sandspur (sandspur@rollins.edu). If you believe your students would be interested, I would love to visit your classes for a few minutes to talk to your students about these positions. Please feel free to contact me at aecarlson@rollins.edu if you have any questions or would like any of your classes to work with the paper. I hope you have a great semester! Thanks, Annamarie ________________________________ Annamarie Carlson Managing Editor, The Sandspur Rollins College Class of 2014 aecarlson@rollins.edu The Sandspur: Web | Facebook '''During the School Year *'Visit classes.' Someone from The Sandspur should speak to every RCC class, ENG 140 class, journalism class, relevant communications courses (especially Public Speaking and Public Relations), and English courses. It is also great to talk to political science, anthropology, international business, and environmental science classes who may be interested in writing opinion pieces or starting columns. *'Email student organization leaders. '''Review Get Involved and find out the names of all of the leaders of student organizations, especially active ones on campus inviting them to attend a Sandspur meeting or submit articles about their organizations to the paper. *'Email sports coaches and athletes. Email coaches and athletes inviting them to write or encourage their friends to write about other athletes and sports teams. See if you can set up a system where the baseball team covers the basketball team and vice versa. *'Meet with campus departments. '''All campus departments, particularly OSIL, OCE, and OMA, all enjoy having their departments touted. Reach out to leaders at all three and ask them if they have a student who would be interested in submitting blurbs about upcoming events or start a column talking about what is new in their organization. *'Speak at TJs. Susie Robertshaw loves having guest speakers at her weekly writing consulting and tutoring meetings. Sign-up to speak at one of the meetings about the opportunities to work at The Sandspur. *'Attend organization fairs. '''The fall organization fair is especially helpful as almost all first years are required to attend. *'Table outside the campus center. This can be a great way to distribute papers as well as recruit interested students. Make sure to be LOUD. You need to attract students’ attention and be willing to talk to strangers. *'Email study abroad. '''Dawn Wharram in study abroad is very willing to send out an email to all students about to or currently studying abroad asking them to submit articles, photos, or videos about their experiences outside of Rollins. *'Carry around business cards. Whenever a reporter or photographer is covering an event, they should have Sandspur business cards on them to distribute to anyone who asks what they are doing. General Recuritment Tips *Always bring a sign-up sheet that allows students to fill out their name and email address to every meeting, class conversation, or recruiting event. *Follow-up with everyone who shows interest within 24-hours. *Add anyone who shows interest to an interested student spreadsheet kept in the submit Google document. The Managing Editor can email these people after article assignment each week. *After talking to a class, email the professor a follow-up email reminding students of how they can get involved and with your contact information. Ask the professor to forward it on to his or her students. Some students who may have been embarrassed to show their interest in class may do so through email. *Stay persistent. Sometimes you may be lucky to get one student to show interest after talking to a class. Just keep trying.